Test Anxiety

Quizzes, finals, midterms, essay tests, standardized tests, the list goes on. The demand of preparing for and passing tests is often overwhelming for kids and young adults. The pressures of success can have a negative impact on your child’s mental health, causing them to dread tests and develop severe anxieties. At NeuroZone we recognize that healthy mental balance plays an important role in your child’s academic and home life. 

Anxieties start off small but can grow to impact even your child’s physical health. We provide a healthy, non-medicated treatment to help you or your child address anxieties and learn how to control them.

Neurofeedback has helped our patients take control of their anxiety and have a calmer mindset heading into a test, resulting in improved test scores. Reach out to our office today to help yourself or your child have a better mental state for testing.

What is Test Anxiety?

Tests are a measure of skill, how well you’ve paid attention in class and how well you perform in a timed setting. 

Some anxiety before a test is normal and is actually helpful. Anxiety means your body is releasing adrenaline, something that is built into our biology and enacts our flight or fight response. Some anxiety before a test can help students have the mental clarity they need to focus on and recall the information they’ve studied. However, too much anxiety can impair a student and leave them staring at their test, drawing a blank.

Test anxiety can be caused by a number of factors. Each student is unique in their chemical makeup and personality. We have found that some of the main causes of test anxiety are:

Test History

Students who have failed one or more tests may feel highly discouraged. This discouragement can impact their self-image and lead them to think that they cannot get good grades. These students are often distracted by thoughts that they are the worst in the class and that they have no chance of success. A negative mindset can be detrimental not only to grades but also to whether or not your child believes they can succeed in life.

Preparation

Lack of preparation for a test can cause your child to fail. This may go without saying, but if your child has severe anxiety of testing then they may be scared to even begin studying for the test. As the test day draws closer the anxiety gets worse and so does procrastination. A student who doesn’t study for a test has little chance of passing.

Fear of Failing

With the weight of college on their shoulders, many students are scared of failure and what that failure will mean for their future. This fear can be crippling and negatively impact their view of themselves.

Academic anxiety is very real in today’s society. Young children to adults returning to college can be plagued with insecurities and fear about academia. No one should be controlled by their fear. Neurofeedback therapy allows students to take control of their anxiety and better regulate it so they can have a healthy mindset preparing for and going into tests.

How Do I Know My Child Has Test Anxiety?

There are three types of symptoms associated with test anxiety: Cognitive, emotional and physical. You or your child may be plagued with one of these symptoms or a combination of all three.

Everyone is different and so it is important to first talk to your child or write down your own fears so as to have a better understanding.

The symptoms listed below may show up only on test day or every time the student sits down to study. Learning about the fears behind the anxiety is the first step to treatment and relief.

Cognitive

These symptoms affect the mind and how you think. For instance, some student’s thoughts begin to race, while others draw a blank. Some students are even overwhelmed with negative thoughts about past tests, family expectations or feel they are not smart enough to be among their peers.

Physical

Physical symptoms can be uncomfortable and even cause some students to be unable to attend the test. These symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, sweating, dizziness, headaches, migraines, rapid heartbeat, dry mouth and shortness of breath.

Emotional

Lastly, the student may develop intense feelings that affect them when they study or take the test. These feelings often include anger, frustration, helplessness, shame, disappointment, fear and guilt.

If you or your child relate to the symptoms listed above then they likely have test or academic anxiety. 

How to Treat Test Anxiety?

There are a few ways you as a parent can help your child succeed in school. Trying ways to help your child in-home can help your child better understand their anxiety and get a hold on their fears. 

Preparing for the test is the first step to helping your child feel confident in their knowledge. Aside from helping your child prepare weeks, maybe months, in advance of the test, you can also help them prepare the night before. Going over last-minute subjects, getting extra pencils, a calculator, or extra paper will help them feel ready for the next day.

If you are a student looking to get ahold of your academic anxiety then follow the same recommendation above but find someone who can hold you accountable for studying and will help you prepare for tests.

Other ways to ensure academic success are to:

For students with severe academic anxiety, we suggest scheduling a consultation at NeuroZone before looking into medication treatment. Neurotherapy is a natural treatment that will help you or your child learn how to control your anxiety on your own.

Neurofeedback Therapy

We offer neurofeedback therapy as a healthy and natural alternative to medication. Anxiety can have serious effects on a student’s mental health and academic success. If you have tried to help your child or yourself address test anxiety but are not seeing any improvements in stress levels, it may be time to look into neurofeedback.

The first step towards less anxiety is to schedule a consultation. A consultation will help our staff understand the student’s anxieties and resulting brain patterns. This information is learned from a qEEG or “brain map” evaluation. 

When a patient attends a consultation here at NeuroZone, we will measure their brain electrical activity with sensors that are placed on the scalp. The information is recorded and used as a blueprint of their brain with which we can assess the frequencies, voltage, waveforms and amplitudes. These findings are compared to a standard of what brain function should look like for someone their age. This standard was developed over many years with hundreds of studies and are used as standards within the industry. We will compare your or your child’s brain activity to these brain function standards to help us determine the best treatment plan. 

Neurofeedback Therapy Details

After the first consultation, we will have created a personalized treatment plan that will target you or your child’s brain activity that is linked to anxiety. 

Each appointment is about thirty to forty-five minutes and is often described as a relaxing or restful experience. Each patient is unique and will have a specific treatment plan that is tailored to their interests and area that needs improvement.

Neurofeedback sessions will include audio or visual entertainment, a participatory activity or a reading exercise. During these treatments, electrodes will measure brain activity and the findings will be recorded. 

Biofeedback and neurofeedback allow our patients to achieve relaxation and learn how to self-regulate their stress levels.

Improve SAT and ACT Scores with NeuroFeedback

There’s a lot riding on these standardized tests and they cover a large amount of information. Many students feel overwhelmed when facing the many topics covered in the SATs and ACTs and with the weight of college acceptance riding on the success of the tests, students often develop anxiety. 

Neurofeedback will help you or your child address their anxieties, allowing them to have improved mental clarity on test day. Improve SAT and ACT scores with neurofeedback, a simple and effective treatment. 

Treatment at NeuroZone

At NeuroZone, the majority of our patients are children and young adults. We work hard to help them understand their anxieties and address them. When stress and anxiety are not addressed at a young age, they can develop serious anxiety conditions in adulthood. We want your children and each of our patients to live their best life.

Neurotherapy treatments are personalized to the patient and the areas they are struggling in. We would love to schedule a consultation and help you see how neurotherapy will make a difference in your or your child’s life.

Treatment costs are discussed in this meeting and a cost breakdown will be gone over. Give us a call today at (310) 821-3640 or click here to schedule a consultation and learn more about neurofeedback. We look forward to meeting you!

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